for people who care about the West

Follow-up

Tired of hearing about the 33,000 salmon and
steelhead that died in the Klamath River two summers ago?
According to the California Department of Fish and Game, those
numbers were off: Based on a two-year study of the fish kill, which
was believed to be the largest in the Pacific Northwest, the agency
has found that scientists underestimated the number of fish that
perished (HCN, 7/19/04: Follow-up). It’s probably closer to
68,000.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan has
given the Bill Barrett Corp. a green light to begin
seismic testing near Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon (HCN,
7/19/04: Supreme Court reins in citizens' right to sue).
Environmental and archaeological groups had sued to stop the
project, saying that by approving the project, the Bureau of Land
Management had violated federal laws, including the National
Environmental Policy Act and the National Historic Preservation
Act. But in July, Judge Sullivan denied the plaintiffs’
request and ordered the court’s clerk to remove the case from
the active calendar.

The "most dangerous
building in America" is now on its way to becoming part of a
national wildlife refuge. In July, Kaiser-Hill
contractors finished demolishing Building 771 at Rocky Flats
Environmental Technology Site outside of Denver, a former plutonium
processing plant, and the site of a 1957 fire that sent an unknown
amount of plutonium shooting out the smokestack (HCN, 4/12/04:
Follow-up). Accelerated cleanup of the former nuclear weapons plant
is expected to wrap up in December 2006.

Kennewick Man
will not be resting in peace any time soon. After the
9,000-year-old remains were found in Washington in 1996, a
fight ensued between scientists who want to study the remains and
Northwest Indian tribes who want to rebury the body. In
2000, the Clinton administration invoked the Native American Graves
Repatriation Act, and said the body should be returned to the
tribes; scientists sued, and in February, a federal court sided
with scientists (HCN, 3/1/04: Follow-up). In July, the U.S.
Department of Justice missed its chance to appeal the case, thereby
ending the dispute.